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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Salaries soar by 28.9%, as struggling businesses fight to fill vacancies

…That’s after application rates dropped in November

– Average salaries for new roles reached a 12-month high in November, soaring by a staggering 28.9% across the nation. What’s more, key cities such as Liverpool, Glasgow and Southampton are leading the way when it comes to pay growth. That’s according to the latest job market data from CV-Library, the UK’s leading independent job site.

The report, which compared data from November 2018, with the same period in 2017, found that a number of the nation’s key cities also saw impressive hikes in pay last month. The list of cities that saw the biggest increases in advertised salaries includes: 

  • Liverpool – salaries up by 11.9%
  • Glasgow –  salaries up by 11.4%
  • Southampton – salaries up by 11.1%
  • Aberdeen – salaries up by 10%
  • Newcastle – salaries up by 8.1%
  • Birmingham – salaries up by 5.4%
  • Leicester – salaries up by 3.4%
  • London – salaries up by 2.7%
  • Brighton – salaries up by 2.1%
  • Leeds – salaries up by 1.8%

Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library, comments on the findings:

“This staggering increase in salaries is a direct result of the ongoing struggles that  UK businesses are currently facing. Ongoing economic uncertainty, coupled with the growing skills gap, is making it difficult to entice candidates away from their current positions. As such, it’s clear from the data that organisations in some of the nation’s key cities are pulling out all the stops to secure the top talent.”

What’s more, employers are continuing to advertise their job vacancies ahead of the New Year, with the number of live job vacancies increasing by 8.7% in November, when comparing year-on-year data. That said, candidates continue to remain cautious, with application rates dropping by 14.8% over the same period. 

Biggins concludes: “The data reveals that candidate confidence has taken a knock since this time last year and this could be the driving force behind last month’s jump in salaries. It is, however, good to see that businesses are still advertising their vacancies. And with many professionals adopting the ‘New Year, new me’ mantra in January, plus the impressive pay packets currently on offer, we expect to see application rates picking back up as we enter 2019.”

If you’ve got vacancies to fill, don’t hesitate, post your jobs with CV-Library today.